Vanessa Selbst Makes History with 2013 PCA High Roller Win

Last week, top poker pros competed in the 2013 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure $25,000 High Roller Event in the hopes of earning the $1.4million+ first place prize as well as bragging rights. In the end it was Team PokerStars Pro Vanessa Selbst who earned the first place win and made history in the process. Selbst is now the winningest female player in the history of tournament poker play.

Selbst moved ahead of Kathy Liebert, the former number one, by over $1 million. In the High Roller tournament, Selbst outlasted the field to face Vladimir Troyanovskiy in heads up play. At the end of heads up play, the blinds sat at 30,000/60,000/10,000. Troyanovskiy would raise to 125,000 on the button while holing pocket Kings and Selbst would fire back with a three-bet of 290,000 while holding A-Q.

Troyanovskiy had to think for a minute and then four-betted 550,000. Selbst would answer back with an all-in and Troyanovskiy would call. The flop of 2-2-8 on the flop did nothing for Selbst and the 10 on the turn made Selbst get up out of her seat and then sit back down to count chips. The Ace on the river would see Selbst shoot out of her seat as she realized she had won the High Roller event.

Selbst spoke with PokerStars about the win and moving up as the top female tournament winner of all time, by stating: “It is a great honor. It’s a great achievement and definitely something I can be proud of. The stats are fun to look at, but it’s definitely not what I’m playing for.”